Worried About a Honeymoon Fund Seeming Tacky? Here's How to Set One Up the Right Way
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There are a seemingly infinite number of details to organize when you're planning a wedding. Among these is your registry, the one-stop shop where your guests will purchase wedding gifts. However, if you and your partner have already been cohabitating for years, you may not feel that a wedding gift registry is necessary. Setting up a honeymoon fund instead of a traditional registry is a good alternative for this exact reason.
Learning how to set up a honeymoon fund is a straightforward process, but there are a few important choices to make along the way. Couples will need to decide where they'll set up their honeymoon fund, how they'll direct guests to their honeymoon fund, and if they plan to provide a breakdown of honeymoon expenses for guests to contribute to or keep it general.
Even if the wedding date is far away (and the honeymoon is even farther), this is one detail you won't want to put off. For couples who don't need another blender, stick vacuum, or set of bed sheets in their fully stocked home, this is how to set up a honeymoon fund to have your friends and family treat you to the trip of a lifetime.
What is a honeymoon fund?
A honeymoon fund is set up by an engaged couple to collect money from their loved ones to help pay for their honeymoon and other post-wedding expenses. Couples may have a honeymoon fund in addition to or instead of a traditional wedding gift registry.
How do honeymoon funds work?
All honeymoon fund sites are slightly different, but they provide the same general service. It's a good idea to do some initial trip research for your honeymoon before you set up a honeymoon fund, just so you can get an idea of the budget for your trip. Then, just like with a traditional gift registry, you can create a honeymoon fund account and start selecting which trip experiences you'd like to register for.
These activities can be very specific (e.g., a wine tasting and vineyard tour) or general (e.g., plane tickets). Images and descriptions may be added to make the activities feel more personal, so friends and family can feel like they're contributing to a special part of the trip. Keep in mind that because many guests have a hard time figuring out how much to spend on a wedding gift, they may not know what to contribute if you list general activities without costs associated. Even if they're just estimations, try to list different amounts for each activity so guests can associate their contribution with something concrete and budget accordingly.
Once a guest has given money to either the general honeymoon fund or a specific activity, the money will be held by the honeymoon fund site until you decide to transfer it to the bank account that's connected with it. (This may take a few days, depending on the service.) The honeymoon fund website will usually keep track of who contributed to which activity, so you can give proper acknowledgment of their gifts when you write your thank-you cards.
Where should you set up a honeymoon fund?
There are a few different sites that allow you to set up a honeymoon fund or cash wedding registry.
The Knot: The Knot provides an all-in-one destination for creating your wedding website and cash registry. You can create custom lists with lots of personality and register for experiences as varied as NBA tickets or a sunset cruise in Aruba. It offers a comprehensive dashboard for tracking who's given what and how much money you've been gifted so far. While you can create a Knot Cash Registry for free, they charge a 2.5% transaction fee for all collected funds that are moved to your bank account.
Zola: Zola is another popular wedding hub that allows you to integrate a traditional or cash registry right into your wedding website. Couples can get creative by adding their own pictures, captions, and amounts to their honeymoon fund experiences or opt for general, prewritten ideas straight from Zola. There is also a 2.5% transaction fee to move funds to your account.
Honeyfund: This Shark Tank success story lets you put together a cash fund for your honeymoon, house down payment, or a charity of your choice. Honeyfund sets itself apart by offering its service for free, without charging any processing fees. You won't be able to build your entire wedding website using Honeyfund, but if you're looking to cut costs, this is a good option.
Hitchd: This is one of the most design-forward honeymoon fund sites out there. If you are concerned about the untraditional nature of a honeymoon fund, this one offers impressive features for you and your wedding guests. It lists all of your honeymoon experiences as generally or specifically as you like and denotes which ones have already been funded or partially funded. You can also reach out to your contributors after the trip to send them messages and pictures of the activity they helped to fund. Hitchd allows you to create a honeymoon fund for free, but they ask for a one-time fee upon setting it live. This amount is between $119 and $199, depending on your wedding size.
How do you let people know about your honeymoon fund?
If you have a wedding website, your honeymoon fund should be linked there. Guests will usually look for an engaged couple's registry on their website, so make it clear that the honeymoon fund is the registry.
If you don't have a wedding website, you can include the URL of your honeymoon fund in your wedding invitation suite.
Can guests contribute to the honeymoon fund in other ways?
It is entirely up to you whether you want to accept other forms of monetary contributions. Some guests who are unfamiliar with honeymoon funds may prefer to give a cash gift as a wedding present.
Allowing guests to transfer money directly through a service like Venmo, Paypal, Zelle, or Cash App will usually let you avoid the transaction fees associated with using a honeymoon fund site. The trade-off here is that using a money-transfer service is a pretty informal, bare-bones option that doesn't allow for the shoppable, registry-like interface that honeymoon fund sites provide.
How much should guests contribute to a honeymoon fund?
Guests should contribute the same amount to a honeymoon fund as they would toward a wedding gift. If you're unsure what amount would be appropriate, look to your usual spending habits. "A good place to start is what you would spend on a fabulous night out with friends; now multiply that by four," says Jodi Smith of Mannersmith Etiquette Consulting.
If the honeymoon fund lists individual activities for guests to contribute to, you can choose the one that's most aligned with your budget. Otherwise, just contribute the amount you're considering to the general fund.
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